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Saturday, June 28, 2014

I’m Tired of Being Tired of Nigeria’s Unending Violence

By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

This
admittedly convoluted headline speaks to the depth of my frustration and
helplessness over the never-ending bloodletting that has become the lot of
Nigeria in the past few years.Nigeria
has become a nation that is drenched in its own blood. It has become
immobilized by the continually unspeakable terror of a homicidal lunatic fringe
and the rank ineptitude of a clueless state apparatus. It’s hard to resist
being jaded and insentient.

Just
as I sat down to write this week’s column, I was jolted by the news of yet
another senseless butchery of innocent shoppers at a mall in Abuja. When I first read
the news on social media sites, my instinctive reaction was, “Oh, not again! Will this
ever end?”

I didn’t think I had any more capacity to be
shocked by the ceaseless sanguinary fury of the murderous psychopaths that have
made parts of Nigeria hell on earth--- until I found out that one of the scores
of people that died at the mall was a journalist I had had a reason to relate
with in Nigeria.

The tragedy of the mall
bombing took on an added psychological proximity for me after I found out that
Suleiman Bisalla, a former deputy editor at Daily
Trust and managing editor of the New Telegraph,
was among the dead.It was Josef Stalin
who reputedly once said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a
statistic.” He was basically underscoring the fact that deaths evoke more
emotions when we can personally relate to the individuals that are deceased.

I
first met Suleiman in Jos either in late 1998 or early 1999 when I was a
reporter for the Weekly Trust. I did
a story on the notions of Middle Belt identity, which required me to travel to
Jos and other hot spots of Middle Belt identity politics.While in Jos, I went to the Plateau State
secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) both to familiarize
myself with local journalists and to get leads on the best people to talk to.
Suleiman was the first journalist I met. He was a reporter, I think, for the NigerianStandard at the time. I found him to be very kind, genial, and
obliging.

I
recall being fascinated by his last name and asking him if he was by any chance
related to the late Major General Illiya D. Bisalla. I don’t remember what his
response was because it wasn’t a particularly comfortable topic for him. I also
thought that being a Muslim who was indigenous to Plateau State, the notional
political headquarters of the Middle Belt, he would have a unique perspective
on Middle Belt identity.He shared very
interesting thoughts with me about this but refused to go on record. He said he
was a news reporter, not a news maker.

I
had left Trust when he moved over to
the paper. When I met him again at Trust
many years after our first meeting in Jos, he didn’t seem to remember where and
how we first met.But I couldn’t forget
my meeting him in Jos. Were it not for his help I would not have been able to
speak with such notable Plateau State politicians as the late Senator John Wash
Pam and Mrs. Hannatu Chollom. He will certainly be missed by the Nigerian
journalism profession

May
Suleiman’s soul, and the souls of the others who perished in the blast, rest in
peace.

As
I think about this senseless carnage, I can’t help being angry at Nigerian
security forces.Just a few weeks ago,
the military seized thousands of newspapers and hounded news vendors because
the military claimed it got “intelligence” that “materials with grave security
implications” were being hidden in newspapers. Poor innocent people are
routinely harassed in the name of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet when the
real terrorists strike the security forces are often caught flatfooted.

Ismail
Omipidan, a regional editor at the Sun,
echoed my frustrations well when he wrote on his Facebook timeline: “First,
they searched every circulation van of media houses, looking for explosives; they
found none. They seized some sales executives, looking for explosives; they
found none. And they got intelligence report that Petrol Tankers will be used
to bomb Abuja. Then, they shifted to Kaduna, to search Speaker Tambuwal's car,
again for explosives; they found none. But they were nowhere near Emab Plaza,
Abuja, to search for the real explosives that eventually killed one of my
friends and colleague. They did not also get the unusual intelligence report
that Emab plaza was the target yesterday.”

It’s
a terrible fate to live in a country that can’t secure its capital; where even
the seat of power is vulnerable and helpless before terror. I am tired of being
tired.

Re: When a Country's Future is in its Past

I
received many great responses to my column with the above title, but I am
publishing only one this week, because it corrects a minor but important
factual error.

For
your information, the late Gov. Abubakar Rimi did not appoint a commissioner
from the South or any other state outside Kano, but he appointed non-Kano
indigenes to other high offices, including a South-southerner as Director of
Research in the Government House. Others were the Special Advisor, Political
Affairs; the Chairman of the State Investment Co. and the MD of the State
Newspaper, The Triumph.

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award. He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student. He writes a weekly column for the Nigerian Tribune. His research has won top awards. Read more about him here: https://www.farooqkperogi.com/p/about-me.html